Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I know that conspiracy theories have been around forever-- but why does it seem like otherwise normal people are now so willing to believe them? Not just absurd, disproven birtherism, but Breitbart, 9/11 "Truthers" and others?
The theories are outlandish and disproven, but they continue to believe? Is it education? Is it cognitive dissonance? Why are these otherwise intelligent, educated people choosing to believe the unbelievable.
Are they going to insist that these tin foil hat theories are taught in schools as an "alternative" like absurd intelligent design theory?
::FEAR::
Who debunks them? Oh yeah, the government does. I forgot.
WABC out of New York is reporting Obama's birth certificate and selective service card are forgeries right now. They are fixing to have a full report. Take a listen.
I know that conspiracy theories have been around forever-- but why does it seem like otherwise normal people are now so willing to believe them? Not just absurd, disproven birtherism, but Breitbart, 9/11 "Truthers" and others?
The theories are outlandish and disproven, but they continue to believe? Is it education? Is it cognitive dissonance? Why are these otherwise intelligent, educated people choosing to believe the unbelievable.
Are they going to insist that these tin foil hat theories are taught in schools as an "alternative" like absurd intelligent design theory?
::FEAR::
The allure of a conspiracy theory is that it takes many facts, and then provides many questions to which are not directly evident (immediately testable or accessible) and then inserts "plausible" alternative explanations.
Some conspiracy theories, due to the nature of a given topic can even be argued quite convincingly and reasonably due to the omissions in data concerning the questionable area.
Others are simply "belief" based where the acceptance of a given alternate explanation or evaluation is beyond that of reasonable and resides solely on that of the individuals given bias to a position.
Take for instance the book "The da vinci code". The author stated he took a conspiracy theory and filled in the "holes" through fictional adaptation in order to create the story. The list of individual facts that the conspiracy theory uses are true, the application of them is the means to which solidifies it and gives it a "reasonable" question.
The interesting thing is concerning issues where neither side of a position has enough verifiable facts to properly establish a given issue. Both sides insert what they believe to be "plausible" to a given explanation, though neither side truly knows the full facts of that issue.
The real issue then becomes whether either side has enough facts to properly conclude a given view. In most cases with certain issues that can not be fully established, it is done via a "reasonable majority" to which accepts the explanation of an issue as being correct. In most cases, this "usually" ends up being the correct assessment (within reasonable bounds), while the other side simply continues to produce more questions of uncertainty. This can get to a point of absurdity, where those with such "questions" are dismissed as unreasonable and fanatic to a given resolution.
On the other side though, there may be reasonable questions for a given issue, to which the "majority" is mislead to believe they are unreasonable and the goal of a given position resides not in the proper establishment of the facts, but in the establishment to which they are viewed by a majority.
To distill the reasons for there being so many conspiracy theory believers:
- this is an age of entitlement. People feel entitled to have their own worldviews validated, in part because they are accustomed to beaing treated as royalty, being consumers.
- There is a visceral thrill in being one of the few who 'knows'. Some in the Middle east, with their particularly insane (to our ears) theories, just think that they are being sophisticated.
- it is almost impossible to prove a negative (cf. 'God is a Flying Spaghetti monster above).
- We live in an age of information overload; coorelating all of the information out there is one of the major challenges of our age.. which is why there are so many DBA's out there, and why Google is King. thus 'facts' can be found almost anywhere to 'prove' anything.
- Popular taste, never rigorous, drives much of our culture
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
